I am a multimedia artist working with sculpture, printmaking, performance, and new media. Blending these mediums, I examine the intersections of gender, violence, religious ideology, and propaganda in the context of contemporary American culture. Grounded in my somatic presence, my work engages with materiality as an investigation of different forms of labor and their relationship to gender.
I have been studying the tensions surrounding sin and the shifting perceptions that shape how we understand ourselves. I enjoy the intricacies found in and on small objects, and what path they take me on to reveal what usually stays beneath the surface. My practice focuses on a surreal perspective of the boundaries that blur morality, and the transitional space that exists there.
I am a multidisciplinary artist with a focus in drawing, painting, and printmaking. I often utilize bright colors paired with a semi realistic style to depict people and animals. In my work I explore themes about death and the life cycle, and my work helps me come to terms with things that are beyond our control. By showcasing the tragedy, beauty, and most importantly, the reality of death that is often ignored by so many people. I aim to remind people about the impermanence of our bodies as well the loss of control we experience within decay.
Instagram: @idabeesknees
With personal narrative as my current primary medium, I pull from my most impactful memories and put my life on display to show others they are not alone in their own lived experiences. I allow the viewer into my world, sharing feelings of obsession, friendship, self exploration, and grief in direct and complex ways. I utilize drawing, painting, and print making as a way to supplement these ideas and visualize them to others, showing that we are all uniquely similar individuals.
I believe acquaintanceship is an art form that is under explored. I am currently exploring ways to encourage this curiosity and community building from the individual for the sake of a better and more empathetic world. I hope to incorporate social practice and artist’s books as a way to involve others in my art practice in ways that are tangible and experienced.
People tell you when you’re young to choose a path & stick with it and my journey as an artist successfully defies that advice. Through various mishaps & doubting if I have what it takes, I’ve experimented to find what proudly resonates with me. My work has no standard appearance because it’s made to represent my life, emotional state & my constantly changing emotions. However, I enjoy creating things that have recognizable qualities that make people go, “Elyse would like this” only to realize it’s mine, with characteristic marks like distinct linework, bold colors or stark highlights.
My work has always been personal so its context is never seen next to any of it on display via wall note, and rather is left up to the viewer to comprehend unless they choose to ask me, such as my piece Redemption (Figure 1), that morphed from a commentary on religion into one surpassing expectations placed on myself by others. My art isn’t for people to understand me, but as a means of therapy to process things I can’t verbally express. The important themes in my art are always about my familial experiences and exploring our connections within ourselves and a world beyond what’s fathomable. The driving force behind what I do is both the passionate, creative family that I have been drawing inspiration from all my life as well as the post-mortem, otherworldly experiences many don’t encounter frequently & can’t be easily explained to others. Not all of my work is based on my family, but their influence is something that seeps through constantly.
I think of the mind and body as separate entities that coexist within us and apply the same philosophy to my art to remind myself to not become drained. I must feel drawn to/compelled by my work before anyone else and that takes time. Over-exerting my energy and being overwhelmed by my end goal makes it hard to find balance between mystery and conversation, especially based on what medium I’m using, which has expanded beyond paints and now crossed into the boundaries of things like beads (Figure 2). I always sketch and conceptualize with only mechanical pencils and it adds a level of calm that something like mixing paint wouldn’t when my mind is already clouded.
Much of my work has taken a turn into my own mind and the intricacies within it that draw me to focusing on individual body parts, close-up angles, and slight body horror as I’m currently curating a series that will hopefully make people uncomfortable within themselves and subvert their preconceived ideas of gore (Figure 3). Creating a visual story eases this process and so I’m staying focused on trying new materials & techniques to ensure my work is as authentic as possible.
My current work explores the space between grief and gratitude. It is a live documentation of the spirals of an anxious mind—obsessive, self-critical, over-intellectualizing—and the snap into peace that comes with seeing the body as animal or adult as child. My background in sociology and years working with children have helped inform my work, specifically in bringing compassion to myself and others. As we age, we learn to watch ourselves, to curate and censor and smooth out the raw edges.
My recent work has been larger in scale, using a variety of media: starting with wood, plaster, and glass, then later refining with more technical paint or pencil. I believe this shift is a testament to the child within who just wants to learn but also wants to play—to realize the comfort, the adult-binky, of working with our hands. Art has been a method for me to create physical monuments to what it means to be human, to pull things out of a messy-room mind and pin them down. I build nests for all the versions of myself, or maybe a nest out of all the versions of myself—to rethink the parts we have been taught to hide and create a place for rest and understanding.
The celestial creation of [gender]queer Afro Indigenous identity is the pinnacle of my multifaceted yet grounded artistry. Art making has always been a way to directly combat my institutionalized lack of voice. I began queering materials to create sculptures, writings, & paintings as a method of archiving the erasure & subsequent perseverance of my people. Although, in my “mixedness” (Afro Indigenous Brazilian-American), I have been able to counter erasure & foster the boundless creativity that it takes to create culture from ashes. As a black studies & studio art double major, I am constantly calling on my lived experiences, research, & artistic practice to create pieces that are as much a call to action as they are a glimpse into the precarious situations that my respective communities face. To have more spaces for activism, interdisciplinary artistry, & discussion, I created the AtlantiQ collective.
I use my activism & ongoing research into environmental studies & critical race/feminist theory to inform my work, which dissects [intergenerational] trauma, gender, sexuality, assimilation/reclamation, folklore, & institutional violence. I use bright colors & laboriously constructed physical materials that are associated with intricate histories, such as wood, hair, bronze, water-based paints, sugar, steel, as well as up-cycled material, & twine/rope. In this queering of the material, I see a transformation akin to mine, one where what is used is granted its opportunity to share its history, one where space is created to understand the delicate balance of existence.
My name is Gaby Smith. I am a multimedia artist who uses art as a way to visualize and demystify complex emotions and situations. My art, being heavily influenced by my own experiences, has allowed me to explore the nuances of the multiple identities that I occupy. I never want to drone on about how I’m a black lesbian with ADHD, depression, anxiety, and a devoutly religious family – but the truth is that I do not exist outside of these distinctions. I have found great meaning and strength in the voice that my art has given my being, as it has allowed me to understand the most shameful parts of me that I hide even from myself. By visualizing these aspects of humanity, not only am I seeing myself, but also allowing others to see themselves within my expression. My goal is to normalize sharing these intricate experiences, leading to a greater understanding of the intra and interpersonal – furthering the human experience overall.